114: God's Beautiful Design for Men and Women with Kat Armstrong

Kat Armstrong has been emboldening women to be all-in for Jesus for twenty years as a speaker, Bible teacher, author, and podcast host. She is the author of No More Holding Back and The In-Between Place. As cofounder of The Polished Network, a nonprofit connecting and gathering working women to navigate career and explore faith, her mission is to create holy curiosity. Kat holds a master of christian education from Dallas Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Aaron, have been married for eighteen years, and live in Dallas, Texas, with their son, Caleb. They attend Dallas Bible Church, where Aaron serves as the lead pastor. She comes on the show today to dispel some of the myths and stereotypes surrounding the topic of “Biblical womanhood” and to open our eyes to the beautiful design for men and women that is found in God’s Word. We pray you will walk away encouraged by today’s show!

What She Chats about in Today’s Episode:

~Kat’s book, No More Holding Back: Emboldening Women to Move Past Barriers, See Their Worth, and Serve God Everywhere , what led her to write it, and what readers can expect

~Kat’s own journey through legalism and wrong stereotypes surrounding the topic of “Biblical womanhood”

~The implications of the greatest commandment on our views of men and women and their roles; the common, perhaps subconscious, assumption that loving God with your heart and soul is women’s work and loving God with your mind and strength is men’s work; the problem with gendering this great commandment

~Addressing the common myths that say marriage is to be our greatest joy and motherhood is to be our highest calling; the idolization and other problems these lies lead to

~The fruits of the Spirit as being our litmus test for whether or not we are living as Christ has called us to

~The ways in which Christ called, commissioned, and equipped women and how Paul praises them for partnering with him in the early church

~Asking ourselves the question: Would I allow women to take on the roles today that Jesus and Paul allowed them to take on in the early church to advance the gospel or would that go against my belief system on “Biblical womanhood”?

~Wrong views of “male leadership” and what we actually see in the Word

~The examples of Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, and others

~Roman household codes in the 1st century and how Paul’s and Jesus’ teachings in the NT reveal the revolutionary nature of the ways of Jesus and Paul said relationships should work in Christian families

~Mutual submission between all Christ-followers, one to another

~What knowing the Greek of Ephesians 5 reveals about Paul’s actual teachings on submission

~The importance of knowing the cultural and historical context of the Scriptures

~Jesus’ breaking down of gender barriers as shown in the book of John

~And more!

Resources Mentioned

Offer for a free audiobook and 30 day trial membership from Audible: www.audibletrial.com/HomeandHearth

The Polished Network

Kat’s first book, No More Holding Back: Emboldening Women to Move Past Barriers, See Their Worth, and Serve God Everywhere

No More Holding Back Study Guide

Pre-order Kat’s new book, The In-Between Place: Where Jesus Changes Your Story

What is Biblical Womanhood? podcast episode

My “What is Biblical Womanhood?” blog post

The Gospel as Stories by Dr. Jeannine Brown

Colossians & Philemon by Dr. Marianne Meye Thompson

The Story of Romans by Dr. Katherine Grieb

Invitation to Retreat by Ruth Haley Barton

QUOTES TO REMEMBER:

“My biggest misapplication of the Scriptures during that time was assuming that loving God with your heart and soul was women’s work and loving God with your mind and strength was men’s work. But it isn’t. We have gendered this command, and that is never what God intended.”

“Because God calls us as women to also love God with our minds and strength, we need to be asking ourselves – are we growing in our theological knowledge? Are we living out the strength of Christ? Or are we allowing the enemy’s lies to hold us back?”

“As wonderful as marriage and motherhood are, knowing and loving Jesus far surpasses those things. Knowing Jesus is the pinnacle of life and our greatest joy; that is our highest calling.”

“When we dethrone marriage and motherhood as those ‘highest callings’ we raise Jesus up to His proper place in our hearts. But doing so does not at all diminish the beauty of those two callings that certain women are called to fulfill.”

“When we dethrone our idols and raise Jesus up, we are then able to live into such freedom in those beautiful roles He has called us to.”

“Our idols destabilize us, because they cause us to not lean into the true Source of our strength.”

“We would do better to look to the fruits of the Spirit rather than our own man-made rules as our litmus test for how we are doing at living as a faithful Christ-follower.”

“This is not about women being better than men. This is about men and women both being created in the image of God and commissioned to partner together to advance the kingdom and to be a blessed alliance to one another.”

“Irregardless of what you think headship is, a woman who is well-versed in Scripture and deep in her theological knowledge does not threaten headship. She helps it, as Priscilla did.”

“What first century readers of Paul’s letters would see is a completely upside down picture of relationships in comparison to what was normative in the patriarchal culture of the time.”

“Submission is a healthy thing, a calling that is to be lived out by every Christ-follower, one to another.”

“If we actually treated our fellow believers as our brothers and sisters rather than people to usurp, dominate, objectify, fear, etc., things would be so much different.”

“Instead of deconstructing your whole faith, how about repairing and restoring it according to real Biblical truth instead?”

“We see all throughout the book of John Jesus breaking down the gender barriers of the culture in His day.”

“John builds the case in his gospel that women are incredible disciples of Jesus.”

“We should be treating women with the same dignity Jesus gave them.”

“Jesus will meet you where you are, no matter what hard season you are in, what sin of others has impacted your life, what sins you have committed yourself. Just as with the woman at the well, He will meet you where you are, and He can redeem your story.”

WHERE YOU CAN FIND KAT ONLINE:

Website – Kat Armstrong

Instagram – @katarmstrong1

Facebook – Kat Armstrong, Author

Podcast – The Polished Podcast

The Polished Network

To Leave a Rating and Review on iTunes

Have you been encouraged or inspired by today’s episode? If so, could I ask a little favor? If you could leave the podcast a rating and review in iTunes, that would be amazing! The more ratings and reviews a podcast receives, the more iTunes shows that podcast to other folks searching for shows to listen to, so by leaving me a rating and review, you truly are partnering with me in this podcast ministry to encourage and help as many women as we possibly can. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that! Here’s how:

If you’re on your computer:

Access iTunes on your desktop and type Home and Hearth in the search box on the upper right hand corner.
Click on the podcast photo when it comes up
Click on “Ratings and Reviews” beneath the podcast title
Under “Customer Reviews”, click on “Write a Review”
Click on how many stars you want to rate the podcast and then write out your review and click submit
You’re done! Thank you so much!!

If you’re on your phone:

Open the podcasts app
Click the search button on the bottom righthand corner (the magnifying glass) and type in Home and Hearth in the search box that will appear at the top of your screen
Click on the podcast photo when it pops up
Click on the reviews button near the top middle of the screen
Scroll down a bit, if needed, until you see “Write a Review” and click on that
Click on how many starts your want to rate the podcast, write out your review, and click “send” when finished
You’re done! Thank you so much!!